poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Tell a wise
person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise
what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm
water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are
no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.
Distance
does not make you falter.
Now,
arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long
as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.
Translated
from the German by Robert Bly